Protests against a planned gold mine in Cajamarca, Peru, turned violent last week, resulting in five deaths. The conflict pits American mining giant Newmont against locals who claim that the mine will poison their water and destroy their livelihoods. FES' own Vrinda Manglik was in Peru to witness the protests.

Editor’s note: This post is the second installment of Climate and the Coast, Angela Whitney’s summer blog about her research on fishing communities in the Philippines. Click here to read the first entry.

Carbon nanotubes are among the most extraordinary materials ever constructed, capable of revolutionizing industries from solar energy to space travel. But for all their futuristic promise, nanotubes pose a grave environmental health threat, and have been linked to lung cancer. Will nanotubes change the world for better, or for worse?

Maybe it was the first time I rode on a sakayan, a handmade pontoon boat; or perhaps it was when I sat down to hire my research assistant; or possibly it happened when I first saw bags of live, brightly …